Candy Canes and Roses
by CommandantTwin
Summary: Cloud and the gang move into an apartment in Midgar, bringing along Cloud's pesky twin brother and SOLDIER's greatest female general. Random humor, romance. Cloti, VinxTw. Rated for language and some scenes that don't belong in the summary.


Hello everyone!

This is the first fanfic I've ever posted on this site, but I have lots more that I write out of boredom, or because my friends requested it.

I don't own any of the Final Fantasy VII characters, but I own Commandant Twin and Sapporo (the character, not the place )

Have fun reading!

Chapter 1 - Evil Dust Bunnies

"I am NOT going near that thing." It was a rather boring afternoon, and Tifa had assigned everyone to cleaning duties. At the moment, Cloud was feeling rather apprehensive about seeing what was under the bed. He was feeling even more apprehensive at the thought of pushing a vacuum cleaner around, or rather, someone seeing him push a vacuum cleaner around. Tifa crossed her arms and stared at him. "Well, someone has to do it, and you haven't done your part yet," she reminded him.

"Too bad, because I am not ever, in a million years, going to clean underneath that bed. So there." Cloud looked defiantly up at Tifa, whose expression had just changed from angry to furious. "Cloud Strife, if you don't turn the freakin' vacuum cleaner on right now and start working, I'm going to-" "All right! All right! I'll do it!" Cloud tried to avoid Tifa's gaze as he plugged the vacuum in and turned it on. Satisfied, Tifa moved on to another room.

Cloud sighed as he pushed the vacuum back and forth. Ever since they'd moved into the apartment with everyone else, Tifa had become..._evil_. And Tifa and all her _evilness_ had been torturing Cloud for a long time. But that wasn't the only thing torturing him. He was tortured by many other things, too. First on his list of top torturers was his younger twin, Sapporo, who had just moved in with them. Sapporo was nice as they come, but he had a tendency to become hyper for random reasons and do unexpected acts of insanity. This is what had caused Cloud to waste a good 3,000 gil to buy a heavy-duty, industrial size cage. After all, you never knew what could happen.

Then there was the other new occupant of the apartment, the great Commandant Twin. Twin was great as far as Cloud was concerned, but she also terrified him. Several years ago, she'd served alongside Sephiroth and upheld the title of SOLDIER's first and greatest female general. They'd been in the magazines for quite a while as a very successful couple, but for some unexpected reason, they'd broken up recently. Now Twin was on hold as far as her job was concerned, and was living with Cloud because her house was gone. She was scary, Cloud thought, because she accepted any challenge, and because she owned a sword called "Fatali" that was larger than his own buster sword. When Twin was angry, she'd start waving that sword around, and then there'd be trouble.

Cloud thought for a while, not even noticing that he'd been vacuuming the same spot for over ten minutes. "I think that part of the carpet's clean now," said a voice, jolting Cloud out of his momentary daydreams. He looked up and saw Vincent, arms folded, leaning back against the wall just outside the door. Cloud was not the least bit surprised that he actually spoke now, instead of the usual "........." response. Apart from Sapporo's acts requiring comments from all inhabitants of the apartment, and the blossoms of his new relationship with the heartbroken Twin, he'd become more sociable.

Cloud looked down and saw a sparkling clean spot of carpet underneath him, surrounded by the rest of the room, which was ever-so-slightly not as clean. He raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm inputted by the author, and decided not to ask.

Presently, Twin came down the hall, grabbed Vincent by the hand, and graciously shut the door so Cloud wouldn't be disturbed. Soon after she'd left, however, he heard a furious hammering sound, followed by the sound of shattering glass. Cloud turned off the vacuum cleaner and stuck his head out the window. He did not like what he saw. Sapporo hung dangling from a bungee cord, sledgehammer in hand, and by the looks of it, had just randomly smashed the kitchen window for the fourth time that week.

"Sapporo?! What are you doing?!" Cloud screamed down at him. Sapporo looked up. "Oh, hey, bro. Didn't you hear? I'm unofficial tester for Wallside Windows, and they told me to test the new windows they sent us." He laughed manically;Cloud grabbed the bungee cord and dragged Sapporo up to his window. There was that glazed-over look in his eyes which meant he was on a sugar high. Cloud considered dropping him back down for a moment, but then pulled him inside, shutting the window behind him.

"Sapporo, I'm glad you want to test the quality of our windows, but unfortunately, bungee-jumping from the roof of an incredibly high apartment building isn't necessary...and any window will smash if you hit it with a sledgehammer." Cloud removed said object from Sapporo's grip and stashed it under the bed, along with the other confiscated items he had, such as several butter knives, an alarm clock, a sock puppet and a beanbag chair.

Dragging his brother behind him, Cloud removed a set of keys from his pocket, unlocked a large black cage in the corner, and pushed Sapporo inside, locking the five padlocks after he'd done so. Sapporo howled with helplessness as Cloud turned the vacuum cleaner back on.

Several hours later, Cloud had cleaned the entire room, except for under the bed. Sapporo is watching with increased interest through the bars of his cage.

"Why aren't you cleaning under the-" he begins. "SHUT UP!!" Cloud screams, more loudly than he intended over the vacuum. "Oh, I get it. You're scared of the dust bunnies!" "The _what_?" Cloud stares at him like he's insane (note: he just may be). "Dust bunnies! You know, the things that live under the beds and eat people!" Sapporo says. "Oookay..." Cloud decided to ignore him and continue vacuuming. "DUST BUNNIES! DUST BUNNIES!" Sapporo screamed at the top of his lungs, Cloud winced and considered getting several pairs of earplugs.

Finally, the work was finished. Cloud remembered to always keep Sapporo within a five-foot radius of himself and to never let him near anything that included picture frames or anything with sharp pointy edges.


End file.
